My ID is Gangnam Beauty: Episode 7 Recap

Some bridges are burned while some are repaired in this episode. Kyung-seok has to confront his painful past, rough present, and his shaky future as he learns more about the blurred relationship between his parents. Meanwhile, Mi-rae herself continues to navigate her rocky relationship with her dad as they learn to leave the past behind and accept the present for what it is.

Feel free to listen to the most recently released OST track for the drama while reading the recap: click me!

My ID is Gangnam Beauty Episode 7: A Guy Friend

Episode 7 begins with Mi-rae and Kyung-seok stuck in the department club room together. Mi-rae needs to change into a new and clean t-shirt, but feels uncomfortable changing in the same room with Kyung-seok. She describes the situation as if the both of them had missed the last ride to a ferry and had to spend the night in a room together (omg I think they used drawings from the webtoon??! This is so exciting!). Kyung-seok eventually gives her twenty seconds to change into the new t-shirt and then thirty seconds afterwards to change again when she puts the t-shirt on backwards. Haha.

Soo-Ah and Ji-hyo are walking through campus when they’re approached by Won-ho and Sung-woon. Soo-Ah isn’t too interested in watching the performance and plans on heading home early. She volunteers to take a picture with Won-ho as requested, but the two are eventually bombarded by Jung-ho and his friend who also wants to take a picture with Soo-Ah. While Ji-hyo watches the four take photos together, she takes out Kyung-seok’s phone which she’s holding onto and checks his notifications. Posted is a picture of his dad with an elderly lady on his back that he took back during a promotional event.

Mi-rae and Kyung-seok converse with each other about the festival as well as middle school. He commends her for her brave confrontation against Yong-chul the night before, but Mi-rae doesn’t think too much of it. He then questions whether they could have been friends in middle school had Mi-rae not distance herself from him. Although she claims that he wouldn’t have wanted to be friends with her because of her looks, he dismisses her excuse. Looks aren’t everything. Kyung-seok doesn’t necessarily like pretty girls. So what about Mi-rae? Is he implying that she’s ugly? He quickly panics and adds that he likes her because she’s funny. The two are soon interrupted by Tae-young and Tae-hee who bring a repairman to the room to fix the broken doorknob. When asked why Kyung-seok and Mi-rae are in the room together, Mi-rae answers that she came to change, but quickly leaves upon realizing her response. Kyung-seok follows after her.

As the two walk outside, Kyung-seok declares himself as Mi-rae’s guy friend which shocks her. She’s never had a guy friend before. The two stop to watch some pretty fireworks, but all Kyung-seok can see is Mi-rae. He stares lovingly at her while she stares up at the sky. Staring at the both of them is a jealous Soo-Ah.

Kyung-seok drops Mi-rae off at the bus station. While on the bus, she thinks about the moment when Kyung-seok declared himself as Mi-rae’s guy friend and her as his first friend. She’s so engulfed in this moment she realizes that she’s on the wrong bus. Ahhh!

At home, Soo-Ah reads a news article about Kyung-seok’s dad and his divorce with Kyung-seok’s mom ten years ago. She’s reminded of the scene earlier that night when Ji-hyo showed her the picture of Kyung-seok’s dad on Kyung-seok’s phone.

Kyung-hee is punished for placing last in her class on the entrance exams. Kyung-seok visits her in her bedroom to cheer her up as she cries. He comments that grades aren’t everything and that she didn’t do anything wrong. Watching her cry reminds Kyung-seok of the time when he was scolded by his dad as a young child for crying. Thankfully, Mom came to the rescue and supported Kyung-seok at the time, encouraging him to cry if he wanted to. Mom gave him the support that Dad didn’t.

Rumors and talks about Kyung-seok’s parents spread throughout campus. As Mi-rae enters the classroom, she assumes her classmates must be talking about her. But as she and Soo-Ah walk to their seats in the room, they overhear all the conversations about Kyung-seok and his family. Kyung-seok himself enters the room shortly afterwards and is given his cellphone back by Soo-Ah. He finds the picture of his dad opened on his cell phone and is heavily disappointed. Their professor walks into the room and announces another assignment: watch a movie currently playing in the theater and write a report on it (speaking of movies currently in the theaters, I’m gonna be watching ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ tomorrow. Let’s see how it goes!).

When class ends, Kyung-seok and Mi-rae have a short and brief conversation with each other. She asks if he’s going to the afterparty for the festival in which he responds that he’ll give it a thought since Mi-rae plans on going (AKA he’s going because she’s going to go hehe). He also teases her for taking the wrong bus the night they left the festival together which Mi-rae quickly gets embarrassed about. Hehehe.

After receiving a phone call from Woo-young, Mi-rae visits his office for a visit. She interrupts him while he practices to the ‘New Face’ choreography she performed at orientation so they can talk. Woo-young has to visit the Chief Director of Kelun (Kyung-seok’s mom’s perfume company) and invites Mi-rae to go with him. Mi-rae’s handmade candles were a hit at the festival so the Director wants to meet with her. Mi-rae agrees to go with Woo-young; she’ll be at the afterparty a little late.

Jung-boon visits Woo-jin at his bar restaurant. She helps him clean the place since there are currently no employees working for him. He voices to her his concerns of going bankrupt so Jung-boon offers him her help. She advises that he calculate all his expenses through software programs like Excel to make everything much easier. Woo-jin is impressed with Jung-boon and pretends to hire her. However, it’s not a game for Jung-boon and she warns him to take things seriously.

Woo-young and Mi-rae walk together on campus. After teaching him a few moves from the ‘New Face’ choreography, he follows up with her on his housewarming party. They move the date to that Sunday since Mi-rae has plans to visit her parents on Saturday. Kyung-seok will also possibly be joining them which surprises Mi-rae.

Kyung-seok receives text messages from a group chat that Mi-rae’s created to discuss about the housewarming party. Before Kyung-seok can check it, he’s approached by Ji-hyo who apologizes for looking through his phone. She just happened to check his notifications, but didn’t mean to. Kyung-seok then apologizes to Soo-Ah for misunderstanding and assuming that she was the one behind all the rumors and talks. She expresses to him her disappointment in jumping to conclusions and adds how she too doesn’t have a mom figure in her life. No one else but Kyung-seok knows this about Soo-Ah. She hopes he’ll keep this reveal a secret.

Woo-young and Mi-rae arrive at the Kelun company building, but the Chief Director nor Kyung-seok’s mom is present. They’re currently at the hospital.

At the festival afterparty, Jung-ho and his friend apologize to the girls for their rude, disrespectful, and misogynistic remarks made against them during the festival preparations. Though the girls accept their apologies, sophomore representative Yoon-byul hopes to never see this kind of behavior again in the future. Kyung-seok and Soo-Ah then join the afterparty together, causing everyone to become suspicious of the two.

Mi-rae and Woo-young arrive at the hospital to learn more about what happened to Kyung-seok’s mom. It turns out that she had eaten some spoiled food and wasn’t feeling too good afterwards. They also learn that Kyung-seok’s mom had lost her sense of smell after getting into an accident years ago which is why she had trouble smelling the spoiled food. Woo-young leaves with the Chief Director while Mi-rae stays behind to accompany Kyung-seok’s mom. With the Chief Director, Woo-young discovers the damaged relationship between Kyung-seok and his mom. He’s encouraged to stay quiet about the details.

At the afterparty, Ye-na leads the karaoke session by singing Sunmi’s ‘Gashina‘ to Kyung-seok. However, Kyung-seok is too busy working and listening to Soo-Ah that he doesn’t pay Ye-na any attention. LOL. Soo-Ah thanks Kyung-seok for listening to her share her secret with him; she feels a lot better now that she’s told someone. Kyung-seok stays silent though and leaves the bar to answer Mi-rae’s phone call. Oof, that must have hurt for Soo-Ah!

Mi-rae updates Kyung-seok on his mom’s situation. She’s at the hospital and Mi-rae’s currently with her to accompany her. Mi-rae attempts to persuade Kyung-seok to visit his mom at the hospital and even texts him the location and room of her whereabouts. Kyung-seok contemplates whether to go or not.

Mi-rae leaves the hospital after Kyung-seok’s mom wakes up. A while later, Kyung-seok arrives at his mom’s room to check up on her. As he watches her bicker with the Chief Director, he’s reminded of the time as a young kid when he witnessed him drop her off at their house. She should hire an assistant to take care of her and should even consider getting married again. The two are interrupted when Kyung-seok’s mom discovers Kyung-seok watching from outside the room. She immediately stops and stares at him in shock.

Kyung-seok’s dad receives news about Kyung-seok’s visit to the hospital. Meanwhile, Mom and Kyung-seok catch up with each other at the hospital. She apologizes for leaving him and Kyung-hee when they were still so young. She wanted to pursue the dreams and goals that she had set for herself her entire life, but Dad was limiting her in being able to do so. She essentially had to choose between her work or her family. She also shares with him about the accident that caused her to lose her sense of smell. Kyung-seok’s dad attempts to get in contact with Kyung-seok, but Kyung-seok is occupied with listening to his mom speak her side of the story.

Kyung-seok stays with his mom at the hospital overnight until she falls asleep. Meanwhile, Dad waits for Kyung-seok’s return to the house. When he does get back home, he’s first approached by Kyung-hee but is soon called into the room by his dad. There, he confronts his dad about the details that his mom shared with him. Unlike what he was told by his dad, Mom didn’t leave the family for another man. She never had an affair in the first place. Plus, Dad knew about her lost sense of smell. He was the one who caused her to lose the ability in the first place after slapping her in the face during an argument. Kyung-seok grows furious and disappointed at his dad for the countless lies that he’s told. Kyung-seok walks out of the room while ignoring his dad.

Mi-rae heads to her parent’s house. On the way there, she notices Kyung-seok’s lack of participation in their housewarming party group chat which causes her to grow suspicious. However, she doesn’t think too much of it and grabs some food with her parents. They decide to have some fun by going karaoke afterwards.

Kyung-seok runs away from home like his dad threatened him to. He moves in with Woo-jin who lives in a room located at his bar restaurant. Woo-jin encourages him to just move back in with his dad and Kyung-hee, but Kyung-seok refuses to.

Soo-Ah exits out of her apartment to stop for some items at the convenience store. She encounters Yoo-eun on the way there and lies that she recently moved into the neighborhood to cover up any suspicion. However, Yoo-eun isn’t convinced and grows even more suspicious of Soo-Ah.

It’s karaoke time! Dad and Mi-rae are sure enjoying the fun as they go crazy and sing their hearts out together. Meanwhile, Mom can only watch them in exhaustion and grows a headache from all the yelling and singing. She rushes to the house first after they finish karaoke. Dad and Mi-rae follow not too far away and walk side by side and hand in hand. Dad apologizes to Mi-rae for being selfish and only thinking about himself. He never considered how she felt and why she wanted to undergo plastic surgery. Mi-rae cries upon hearing Dad’s apology, but starts smiling when Dad begins to sing lyrics to BTS’s ‘DNA‘ (wow, Dad really knows the best way to cheer people up!).

Kyung-seok has trouble sleeping with Woo-jin that night. He relocates to the couch in the lobby room and recalls another childhood memory: this time of his mom slamming a perfume bottle onto the ground ferociously.

Mom wakes up in the middle of the night to find Dad gone. After searching through the house, she finds him in his taxi updating the picture of Mi-rae as a young child with the new family picture they recently took. As he holds the former photo of Mi-rae in his hands, he expresses how he wished he could have at least bid farewell with Mi-rae’s old face. The guilt gets to Mom and she breaks down crying.

Woo-young prepares for the housewarming party. Time passes and Mi-rae and Hyun-jung arrive at the party together. They’re fascinated and impressed by Woo-young’s new place and head to the rooftop to eat some food. Though they’re all having fun, they’re suddenly reminded of Kyung-seok. Where is he?

Mi-rae checks her phone and finds that Kyung-seok did text in the group chat. Kyung-seok then enters the scene by carrying a huge TV and presenting it to Woo-young. It’s not entirely brand new, but it should be good enough as Kyung-seok just recently bought it.

My Thoughts:

First and foremost, I would just like to apologize for the lack of updates on the blog this past weekend as well as how late this recap was. I was quite busy this weekend hanging out with my family so I didn’t have as much time to post anything (and I honestly sometimes need a break from updating this blog so I binge watched some ‘Idol Producer’ and now have a C-Pop group that I like!). This week is going to be another busy week for me as I’ll be moving out of my current apartment so recaps to this week’s episodes of all the three dramas I’m currently recapping might be delayed until next week. Just wanted to give y’all a heads up!

(here’s 2 beautiful beautiful screenshots of the two beautiful beautiful male leads in this drama to make up for the hiatus the past few days. please forgive me T__T)

Anyways, moving on to this episode. Wow wow wow. Just wow. So many things happened in this episode I don’t even know where to start. We received more details behind the family dynamic and history between Kyung-seok and his family and the reasons as to why their family was separated the way they were. I knew we were going to hear more from Mom’s side of the story sooner or later, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon and revealed so much this early into the drama.

This episode was primarily dedicated to giving us details behind what happened between Kyung-seok’s parents that lead to their divorce and essentially to Kyung-seok and Kyung-hee’s resentment towards their mom. I wasn’t expecting to be given so much content and substance about the family in this episode so it was definitely a surprise. Did I want it so early into the drama? No. Do I think there was too much shown all at once? Yes. Was it a bad move to reveal this much this early into the drama? Not necessarily. While I would have appreciated small bits thrown into the drama bit by bit than receive a full blow of details and flashbacks revealing everything, I’m glad that we were given more context on Kyung-seok’s family. Dad knew he was wrong and that he committed something that he should have never done and would never be able to take back so he hid the truth from his kids. He brainwashed Kyung-seok and Kyung-hee into believing his lies and into thinking that their mom was a horrible person all so he could protect himself. He’s the selfish person in all of this and his lies came back to bite him as now he’s lost the trust of Kyung-seok. It was a good thing he was honest with Kyung-seok and told him the truth, but that was already something that he should have done but has done a little too late into the game. Now Kyung-seok’s dad has to suffer and I doubt his relationship with Kyung-seok will be smooth for a while. How ironic is it that now he’s the one Kyung-seok resents and avoids after years of persuading Kyung-seok to avoid and resent his mother.

Kyung-seok’s dad attempted to force Mom into the limits and boundaries that he had created for her. When she refused to give up her dreams and goals in life, she blew up and left the family to pursue those dreams. She was definitely in a tough spot and she shouldn’t have been forced to choose between her family or work in the first place. No person should ever have to choose, but yet Mom was and she chose work. I don’t think it was that she didn’t care for Kyung-seok or Kyung-hee as she had made attempts to visit Kyung-seok when he was in middle school. It was just for that Mom, choosing family would mean that she would: 1) give up the dreams and goals she’s made for herself ever since she was young which she’s so desperately wanted to pursue and achieve but also 2) be in a toxic, abusive, and dangerous relationship with a man who might hurt her in even worse ways. He had already been threatening her and pushing her to her limits verbally and then abused her physically not too long afterwards. It’s no wonder why she left and in a way, I’m glad she did. She wanted to stay in contact with Kyung-seok and Kyung-hee without having to maintain contact with her husband, but unfortunately things couldn’t be that way. As Kyung-seok’s dad was their guardian and brainwashing them to think of her in certain ways, she couldn’t have as easy and much access to them as she would have liked.

Kyung-seok is slowly starting to piece the broken pieces of a puzzle together after the conversations with both of his parents. Now that he’s older and more mature, he finally understands all the scenes he witnessed when he was younger and why things happened the way they did. He now understands that the man accompanying his mom to their house wasn’t the man she was supposedly having an affair with but rather just the Chief Director who’s taken care of her all these years. He’s also discovered that his mom’s tried to reach out to him all these years with no success in sight because he was clueless but also close-minded in meeting his mom. Everything is finally starting to make sense to him now that he’s receiving details and the honest truth about the events that happened years ago. Kyung-seok can finally start to piece everything together and make his own decisions for himself as compared to when he was younger and would listen to whatever his dad told him.

As always, my favorite scenes in each episode are the moments between Mi-rae and her parents. We witness some guilt that Mom had been facing as she was the one who took Mi-rae in for her surgery despite Dad’s original oppositions to do so. In considering Mi-rae’s feelings and deciding to take her to her surgery appointment, Dad wasn’t able to see Mi-rae’s original face which he feels regretful about. This got to Mom which is probably something she’s felt guilty about for a while. This could also explain her odd behavior when they went to karaoke and ate together at the house. She loves her daughter and wants the best for her, but also didn’t think about how Dad might have felt. I was so so so so so glad to see Dad apologize to Mi-rae for his mistakes though and own up to his wrongdoings. He never thought about how Mi-rae might have felt and only considered his own feelings. Watching that scene of Dad apologizing to Mi-rae while the father and daughter held hands made me tear up. It was so touching and heartwarming in so many ways and I think it’s safe to say the pair have gone back to their old ways again. Some things never change, like a Dad’s love for his daughter and a daughter’s love for her father.